Just look at the list of who the lowest-paid people are. Pediatricians are at the bottom. You would also look at internists. You would look at psychiatrists. You would look at family physicians, HIV specialists. People who take care of chronic illnesses by seeing people carefully over time, those are the people who get the least money. The people who have the most are people like orthopedic surgeons, interventional cardiologists. And my point isn't that there is something wrong with heroism.
Atul GawandeThe possibilities and probabilities are all we have to work with in medicine, though. What we are drawn to in this imperfect science, what we in fact covet in our way, is the alterable moment-the fragile but crystalline opportunity for one's know-how, ability, or just gut instinct to change the course of another's life for the better.
Atul GawandeCourage is strength in the face of knowledge of what is to be feared or hoped. Wisdom is prudent strength.
Atul GawandeYou know, 97 percent of the time, if you come into a hospital, everything goes well. But three percent of the time, we have major complications.
Atul GawandeI think the extreme complexity of medicine has become more than an individual clinician can handle. But not more than teams of clinicians can handle.
Atul GawandeOne of the consequences of if the Affordable Care Act is repealed, is that all of us now are at risk of being a preexisting - of having a preexisting condition waiting to happen. Life, increasingly, is a preexisting condition waiting to happen, now that we have more and more of this data available.
Atul Gawande